Participating in my first course that isn't hosted on a platform #cck11

I looked at this course in previous years and even followed some of the discussions for a very brief time. However, now that I'm enrolled and am participating for me the timing couldn't be better.

I'm so intrigued with the whole idea of the delivery not being on anyone platform. That the concepts or topics for each week are "broadcasted" to the world and that those that are participating in the discussion are "broadcasting" back to anyone who wants to look in on what is generated.

I'm excited that (and this is one rare day for me) that I read today's material on my phone while on the subway. I'm posting my thoughts regarding the intro to the course on MY own blog. One that I've had for a few years. However, the best part or fun for me is that I'm able to respond and do the participating on my mobile.

I can read the material, watch videos, search chats and respond like this (by email) direct to my blog.

I've done lots of surfing on my phone, but to have a real purpose to search for more than the next movie time is exciting.

Am I a techno-nerd? My family and friends would say yes. Am I a learning-nerd? Again yes. I thrive learning more of anything. [ I think if I could have a show on the Discovery Channel it would have to Daily Planet because they cover the most topics. ]

So, back on topic. I'm really excited about the modalities I'm going to be able to explore this course through and with the incredible number of incredible minds I'm going to connect with.
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

How do you read through it all and keep up with everything? #cck11

I was a little scared when I read that the first CCK had 2200 participants and the second 700.  If the course/theory about learning through your connections means I have to connect to that many people, how am I ever to manage.

Even with my Twitter account I'm approaching if not over the 1000 mark and it's becoming more more difficult to look at it all.  I think many people that hear about learning through a network or networks have that panic feeling initially about "How can I possibly read/view/follow it all?"

And then I breathed......

I though about my own advice that I often give people that I'm trying to explain the benefits of Twitter to and I watched Success in a MOOC.

And then I breathed again.......

You don't have to follow it all.  You don't have to read it all.  You read what interests you.  You connect with smaller groups or communities within the larger network of all the people in the class, or all the people you follow  on Twitter.

What is good about this practice and makes it all more manageable is that if you connect with a few great people that you know share great information....where do you suppose they are collecting some of it from....other connections within the greater network.

Consider this picture below.  If you connect to A & D  and they connect to B & C, you most likely will end up getting some of the best information from B & C even though you never truly connect to their RSS feeds, Twitter posts, bookmarks, blogs, pics, etc.  In turn Person C is going to get some of your best information as well.  Not from you, but from Person D or A as they are the people that follow you and share out your information to the network.

We can't possibly follow every person that is out there sharing information on specific topics.  However, if you can build up some really strong connections with others interested in the same "topic".  Develop some "trust in sharing" and "learning relationships" with them.  Create a network.  Then these people become your community.  We each in turn become gathers for one another.  Gathers of information.  Distributors of information.  All learning together.

Starting the Year off with #CCK11 - 'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge

I walked into work yesterday and my co-worker told me how she had just signed up for 2 final courses she had been hoping to complete for the past year in order to complete her certificate.  I'm not sure which bulb went off in my head, or maybe the term should be which one went on, but I had the feeling come over me that I wish I was taking another course.

Then less then half and hour later I see on my Twitter feed from George Siemens:

We (@downes and I) start CCK11 on Monday http://bit.ly/hJwXEKbiggest change-no LMS (moodle). Sign up here: http://bit.ly/fNR8KF

As soon as I saw the #CCK11 I knew exactly the course before even following the links.  This would be the Connectivism course facilitated by George and Stephen Downes.  I've looked into the course in past, but didn't think I had the time to commit to joining the extensive "conversation "this course will create.  So a little more digging and I think I've found what I might academically be looking for right now.

I suppose it felt like to many "signs" all appearing at once that I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to tap into a new learning opportunity.  Some of the faces in the class are ones that I have been communicating and learning from for quite some time.  So that feeling of first day of school and I don't know anyone is still there, but not nearly as bad as day 1 Grade 1.

My only challenge at the moment is getting registered.  It's amazing that this is a free MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), and I have registered online for the course.  However, if I can get a credit for it from University of Manitoba I'm going to and  there is the place that I'm currently having trouble registering.  It's my own fault leaving this to the last minute, but I did only find out about it yesterday.

So, here's to an exciting new learning adventure.  What a great way to start off a new year.

Using Social Media Tools Inappropriately is Not The Fault of the Tool

I'm getting a little tired of defending social media tools every other week at my place of employment.  Several "mishaps" have occurred during work hours and suddenly we need to ban Facebook and cell phones.

As an example:  We have 6 computers in our Library area that staff will come in on their breaks and use to search anything.  There has been an overwhelming number of technical issues on these 6 computers and troubleshooting this issues is falling on the resource person for the library.  Not her job and I agree on this point.  However, saying that if we ban Facebook the problem will go away is a false idea.

A department meeting yesterday allowed me to point out that if the computers are having technical problem after technical problem it is more likely that the computers are "slightly" out of date compared to workstation computers, or user error.  If she/our time is being wasted having to trouble shoot the computers and this is not part of our function within our positions, then there is a staffing issue with our area (and that's not going to change).

The next comment was that the computers were not meant for people to sit at and look at pictures of their friends, kids, wedding, trips, etc.  So once again I was able to point out that not everyone uses Facebook for this purpose.  Some people use this tool for connecting for school work, others are members of serious groups and meet through Facebook.  Other's use Facebook as their primary tool for email.  In fact with the launch of their new email function who knows how users will react to using it for their primary email account.  Chances are there will be a large uptake.  So if you ban Facebook do you ban Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc.  No.  You can't discriminate and say this tool is okay, but this one is not because you can look at pictures on it.  Guess what you can send pictures through any and all of them and in case you never knew it you can send music, video clips, recipes, white-papers, minutes, agendas, books, newspapers and an endless list of other "materials".

The bigger problem here (in our department) is not what is on the computers or what is being used on them.  It is what is the purpose of them.  If the purpose is, and this is because they are situated in a Library, that they are for research and work only, then say so.  Make this a policy that these computers are for the sole purpose of Yada Yada.  That is a valid argument.  It has nothing to do with the tools that are being used on the computer it is why are they being used and how do we actually want the computers to be use.  If people are looking at inappropriate un-work related materials, whether on Facebook, or catalogue shopping, or travel research then that is a performance issue.  If they are looking at it on their break/personal time then in most organizations what one does on their break is their business and so we are back to what is the purpose of the computers.  If someone is looking at inappropriate materials on work time, then we are back to a performance issue.  Neither of these scenarios are the fault of the social media tool  The issue lies either with the purpose of the computers or the performance of the employee.

I'll keep fighting and advocating for what I think is a good fight.  I'd be lost as an employee and basically a department of one with out my social network of peers and colleagues.

I'd love to hear any feedback from reader on this topic.  Is your organization open to social media tools?  Do you block some and not others?  Do you have policies for use/misuse?  Will you share them?  What are your personal thoughts on the topic?

How wonderful the PPTA file can be!!!!!!!

So I've saw a wonderful screenr from Jeanette Brooks about the reasons why a PPTA file is created when you are producing a course using Articulate Presenter, but I didn't really get it until today.

Last Friday my work computer crashed, AGAIN, but this time it was fatal and my computer had to be reimaged.  Essentially anything on my hard drive was gone.  This has happened to me before at work.  Not a large problem normally because I save most of my files onto a network server.  That was until I discovered that with each of the courses I created using Articulate, the colour schemes, player templates, etc. are also stored on my hard drive.  The crash wiped them all out.

Being instructional designers using rapid instructional tools I'm sure you can appreciate the need to use the same if not similar templates. So what's a girl to do when they are no more.

ENTER the ARTICULATE FORUM.  What a wonderful and joyful thing!!!!

I searched the Articulate Forum for a solution...couldn't find one....posted the question....searched some more assuming I'm can't possibly be the only person with this issue....and voilà there it was....my solution....hiding in the middle of someone else's question.

There post: http://www.articulate.com/forums/articulate-presenter/18335-s-weird-day-articulate-land.html  and in one of the responses MY SOLUTION.

ENTER the PPTA file.  What a wonderful and joyful thing!!!!

So, one needs only to open a previously published course.  Navigate to the Publish area and resave the Player Template (In Project) as a new name.  The same can be done with the colour scheme by navigating to the Player Template area, Colors, Edit Color Schemes, New and enter in a new name for the scheme.  Both are now resaved into your Articulate presenter to be used over again in a new project.'

Many thanks to Brian Batt (@articulatebrian), Jeantte Brooks (@jeanettebrooks), Justin Wilcox (@justinawilcox), and JP Redman (Articulate User) for all helping me solve my issue of the day.

A Few Lessons Learned from an LMS Implementation (or what I would do differently)

Well it's been a few months now since I rolled out our LMS at our organization and FORCED (at least that's what the staff think) the staff to complete 6 mandatory course.  I humbly admit that I failed in a few aspects of this roll out.  I wouldn't say my initial plan was at fault, more so my follow up when the masses did finally start to use the system.

One step I would do in another was would be to send more progress reports out weekly (for this initial launch) to the management team on how users are completing the mandatory course task.  [The system was live for 6 months with basic classroom registration, then 6 mandatory courses were launched hospital wide.]  Had they known more frequently the progress we may have had more compliance early on.  I think this would have eliminated some of the confusion and "broken-telephone" conversations about the material that spread throughout the organization.  I think it may have also eliminated much of the trouble shooting I had to do as everyone tried to login at once, however this did find some fatal flaws the system had as well.

I would also increase tutoring sessions (what we call "lunch and learns") to assist those new to this format of learning and would spread them out not only to occur at the start of the launch, but also in the middle of the "mandatory package" time frame.  Even more importantly having a few sessions at the end when everyone was scrambling to complete the courses.  It seems to completely slip my mind that the late adopters that would login and try to do the courses were also those that needed the most help in learning how to use and navigate the system.  

This was our first true year of having staff use the LMS for mandatory training.  The management team didn't start to make sure their staff had done the courses until after the 4 month deadline and once staff did start going in more frustrations from those that are less computer savvy emerged.  I had, at this point, moved on from the "implementation/orientation" phase of the LMS and had lost my own interest and sympathy in training staff that didn't bother to "come out" to learn about the new system during the initial rollout.  I'd advise others that are starting out in implementing their systems to prepare themselves that when they are keen to rollout the new system, it may be months before the staff of your organization is ready to listen to you.  Finding that enthusiasm in yourself (again) to go out there and be as energized, enthusiastic, and willing to show it off the system are as key the first day for the early adopters as it is when the others come to you knowing they too must figure out how to use the system.

How do you encourage new and scared users to elearning?

I had a staff member come in yesterday almost in tears to my office so upset and scared about having to do training online this year for our annual core curriculum.  This particular person is a friend of mine so I sat her down in my desk and slowly started walking her through all the steps piece by piece.  I said as much as I could to encourage her.  Let her know her frustrations weren't only hers and that others new to this process where finding it challenging as well.  She thought because it was taking her a long time to do that she must be doing something wrong.  So more words of encouragement that everyone will do this at a different pace seemed to help some as well.

An enormous discouragement to her was that if she couldn't get it done all at once she would lose all the work she had started in the elearning courses.  So misinformation from other users was scaring her and increasing her apprehension as well.  Once I showed her how she could go in and out as many times as she wanted to and still pick up where she left off, she was more relieved, but still some how skeptical.  She still seemed to believe her colleague over me, the so called expert.  I also made sure to show her how she could navigate back and forth and all through the course at her own will.  I explained how the course was still very "open booked" and that she could look at a quiz question and then refer back to the material any time.

When I left work yesterday she seemed to be working along at the course comfortably, but I will be extremely interested to hear her opinion today of the process and whether she is still as intimidated as yesterday.

I'm curious how you help and guide others that are scared to begin using elearning?  Any thoughts or ideas?  Please share.

Amazing what a little nice feedback can do for the soul.

So today I came in and started working through my emails from the weekend and true to form the first few were typical.  "I don't know how to do this..."  "Why can't I do....."  "Will you...." and so on and so on.

Then I came to this one:

Hi Tracy,

I just wanted to let you know about some of the feedback that my nurses from inpatient surgery were giving me after attending the HAI bus sessions today. Although they thought the information was good, and they enjoyed it, they all mentioned to me that they wished it could have been as interactive and wonderful as the core curriculum! They went into detail about how they liked that there were little quizzes as they went along and they didn’t get bored in core curriculum (you never could have said that in the past!), but two almost fell asleep in the HAI bus.


Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate all of your hard work on core curriculum and SOLS in general.


Julie
Julie Pierce, RN, BScN

All I can say is wow.  I feel...well...great.  I was actually nervous last week thinking about staff going on this bus (an education room on wheels providing healthcare e-training) and seeing these "professional" courses and then comparing them to the courses I have produced.  I did think mine were not bad at least compared to the ridiculous paper-based material they had to read in the past.  However, compared to some of the work I see out there in my social community I know I have a long way to come before I'm near a lot of that calibre. 

This email was the energy boost I needed to keep going and know that yes I am creating some good content and that it can only possibly get better with all the tips and tricks I learn from all my peers.  This email above isn't only addressed to me it is addressed to all those I network with that help me to improve daily.

LMS Blues (akin to "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water")

Strange title for this posting....when I read an email joke this week saying that students starting college this year were born in 1992 never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

I digress already.

So my LMS blues continue.  I really thought things were going "swimmingly", pardon the pun.  I had launched our LMS earlier in the year and users seem to like it to register for classroom courses.  Educators seem to love the idea of adding electronic curriculum to the catalogue.  Learners were told to begin their mandatory education (6 courses - WHMIS, ER codes, Accessibility, etc.) in June and have until Oct. 1 to finish.  All seemed to be going according to plan with little hiccups here and there along with cries of discontentment due to CHANGE.  "What?!? We aren't doing this on paper any more?" and "I don't know how to turn on a computer."

So all the ranting and raving seemed to subside.  I sent out a report at the beginning of the week that over 1000 people had started the training. That's a third of our general staff.  Of that 1000, over 700 had completed the training.  Not bad for our normal track record.  Yes I did say this was mandatory...and that's another story.

So, yesterday the management team had a development day where the speaker talked to them about things that were mandatory in health care and things that were not.  Then asked them if they were leading by example and had they completed the material.  Well luckily he didn't have them raise their hands since only 18 out of 150 have.

Today the questions are flying.  Why are we doing this online? (my reader most likely can answer this themselves, but at the simplest level - it takes me 9 months to mark the paper ones, but it isn't just about me) Can't we go back to paper? (so we can cheat off of one another - no) We don't have access to computers. (actually you do, there are several dedicated for this purpose in the library)  One particular area we reluctantly made an exception too.  We let the staff read the material and sign a declaration that they did so and laid the responsibility back to the manager.  This has gotten to others and now they don't want to do the normal version they just want to read it.

This brings us to the issue....do we, as an organization, care if our staff knows this material.  The Ministry says we have to and frankly we want our staff and patients to be safe and know what to do in an emergency; so yes we care.  If we care then we need them to read it.  So if that is all we care about - give them a brochure.  However, the reality is that is not all we care about.  We want to KNOW that they read it and understand the material.  Hence the reasoning for not only the material but the test as well.  We also want to know that EVERYONE has read it and not one person in a group of 20 that has read it and "shared" the quiz answer with everyone else.  Hence the reasoning for it being online.  In this format, each person is now more accountable for reading and learning the material.  Each person has the questions delivered in a random format.  (It's not perfect and we - the readers of this blog - know that, but it is a method to more closely coming to the goal required here.)

And so the lovely journey or fight (depending on how you look at it) continues to haunt my daily existence as a proponent and champion for elearning.

(I think I need a super cape)

"Up Up and Away" - Super Smiley
(see yesterday's blog for more Captain Smiley Costumes)

A little boost of creativity for stress relief with #Articulate 's Captain Smiley

So today has been more than a little stressful so as I sat here pondering how to get through it....a small twinkle of fun and inspiration hit me.  I think my Articulate Captain Smiley might need to start thinking of halloween costumes.

And so...I present...Captain Smiley's possible 2010 halloween costumes.


"Boo" - Spooky Smiley

"Arg Matey" - Pirate Smiley

  

"Where is my conditioner" - Clean and Fresh Smiley
(A little red paint, could turn this to Psycho Shower Sceen Smiley)

"Ho Ho Ho" - Santa Smiley

Cirque Du Soliel Smiley

"Aloha" - Hula Smiley

"Reach for the Sky" - Buckaroo Smiley



"Mmmmph!" - Mummy Smiley

 Hope "we" made your day a little more smiley.

(honestly....I could dress him up all day...stay tuned for more???)

Using #Articulate #Quizmaker Hotspot questions in a different way

I posted a question on the Articulate Community forums about a paper based questions that I was having difficultly changing to an online question.

The question is this (image below) based on the diagram you just labelled, pick 3 correct sites for an I.V. start. Of the 10 labels, 5 are correct and the instructor wants the learner to pick 3.


Seems simple enough until to try to put it online. I use Articulate to create my courses and the questions are all based on choose all correct answers. Which is fine and easier. In fact, it's probably what I should have done here. However, if you do want to do a question like this, here is the solution Tom Kuhlmann showed me and my application of his solution.


Tom's solution is to use the hotspot question type in a very unique way. Instead of choosing one large area, you very carefully and selectively freedraw the area that contains the correct choices.

After starting to work on his solution I started getting caught up with the...well how many choices/times do I allow the learner to try this to get the question right. After several brainstorms tring to figure this out.

Realizing that was all to complicated for a question that is only worth 3 out of 50 total marks, I stepped back and relooked at how I could simplify the entire question and keep the basic premise.

I ended up adding a blank slide at the beginning that states exactly what the learner will do. Pick 3 spots, only 3, no extra attempts. Branched one correct attempt to another and used standard feedback for incorrect choices. Then I ended with a final blank slide with an image of the 5 correct areas that could have been chosen.

Here is my Screenr that captures how I used Tom's solution to fix my problem. Thanks to everyone that did assist me in solving this over-complicated question.

It's what makes the elearning community so great!

It struck me again yesterday and once again today about what makes me love the social community of which I'm a part. Specifically I speak of the folks that are part of the elearning community.

What is it that struck me you ask? It's the generosity that "oozes" from everyone. It's the comradery. It's the constant learning and sharing from one another. What is incredible and wonderful to experience is something that is so different from the commercial world and that's the quality of what is shared.

It's one thing to get a 10% coupon off of a coffee and it's something completely different to get an entire coffee for free. Two such examples of this shared quality are from Sasha Scott (@SashaScott) from Brighton, UK and the other is Olivia Mitchell (@OliviaMitchell) from New Zealand. (side note: I love that I'm learning from people that are "practically" on the other side of the world from me)

Scott this week shared his third in a series of PowerPoint templates for creating some interesting and engaging visual learning to be using in course creation. Here is where the "full cup" comes into play. He could have just showed the community what he did (10% off), but that's not what OUR community is about. He also explained in great detail how he did it (Free Cup of Coffee). AND THEN he shared a link to the ppts so that we could use them ourselves in our own course creation (FREE POT OF COFFEE).

Olivia has followed the same path and shares on her blog tips and tricks to presenting effectively (10% off). She then follows the same premise that Sasha has done by sharing an free ebook "How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels)" (Free Cup of Coffee). Then this was where I was reminded again today of the sharing/learning/nurturing nature of OUR community; when you open the ebook the second page clearly says "You can post this eBook on your blog or email it to anyone who you think would get value from it." (FREE POT OF COFFEE).

We might still be in a world where "nothing is free", but it's truly wonderful to know that the people within my Personal Learning Network live by "you teach me and I'll teach you, you grow with me and I'll grow with you". The piece of information, template, clipart, etc that you share with me today, turns into me sharing something right back with you tomorrow.

An ENORMOUS THANK YOU to my/OUR social community.

Imagine what we could accomplish...

It was interesting yesterday to have a conversation with a few of my coworkers about how much we loved to facilitate training sessions with the volunteers that work at our hospital. Our volunteer membership is around 700 people, that choose to be here on a weekly basis. They are here because they love the facility, interacting with others and assisting anyone they can in any capacity.

Our volunteers are the first to sign up for courses that we offer. I never have to ask for a deposit from them to ensure they show up. I know they will. They're hungry for any knowledge we can share with them. Add volunteers to any facilitated session and a two hour session turns into four because they are willing to talk, discuss and share ideas. In fact they have so many great ideas it is often difficult to capture them all.

Our volunteers show up for every shift for which they are scheduled. You never have to worry that you'll be short staffed. They arrive cheerful and excited to have another day "at the office." Each time they arrive to work they come in ready to do the task at hand and you can be guaranteed that when they leave that task is completed. This is true even when they are assisting with truly mundane tasks like envelope stuffing. A certain level of "fun" is found in every job that is assigned to them.

Now imagine that each an every one of us came to our desk, our station, our position in the world of work with that same attitude. Same out look. Same drive to help. Just imagine how much we could accomplish every single day.

LMS Update and How My Organization Has Adapted to Online Learning

Our LMS implementation has been painful. Our nurse educators are keen to get everything they have been doing in classes or have access to in PowerPoint up onto the system. Not the best idea. So I'm slowly taking a topic at a time (mostly what is being driven by Ministry mandatory training first) and creating courses. We rolled out the system with registrations to classroom based courses and are biggest promoter is our Health and Wellness classes (pilates, yoga, etc). That got many people use to using the system, learning how to find and register for a course. It also got me to learn new ways to manipulate the system to "advertise" or list the courses in a more attractive manner than the default settings allow.

The next large push that met much resistance happened this past summer. We rolled out our Core Curriculum modules. 6 modules that are time consuming and painfully detailed. With little time to create them, the online versions are not entirely better than the paper versions of these courses. However, some of the feedback regarding the new online courses has been very positive.

Having to do training online has been a large change for many of our staff. There have been complaints of computer to staff ratios. There is, and always seems to be the argument, do staff train on work time or on their own time. If it is mandatory it should be on work time, but budgets are tight and no one has money to do this arrangement. So time is an issue even when it is online and they can go in and out as often as they want. However, the more I spread this message the more staff like that idea.

Management was very keen on the idea that staff could no longer do one paper test and pass it to all their colleagues to copy and hand in. The fact that online training is individual, increased the accountability factor tenfold and that is an extremely positive thing.

We are only just looking into integrating some blended courses into our curriculum, but this will most likely come with leadership courses that we offer and perhaps unit orientations. We have not quite got to that stage although I have presented many ideas.

The stats that my LMS put out aren't the best at this point in time. An upgrade that as been promised from the vendor for quite some time. I'm crossing my fingers it comes soon. I do know that since we launched the annual mandatory 6 courses (WHMIS, Occupational Health and Safety, Infection Prevention and Control, Incident Reporting, Accessibility, Emergency Codes) that 1000 people have registered for at least 1 of the 6 courses and 700+ have completed them. Not super stats based on the paper version, but on the other hand I do know that all of these people that passed actually looked at the material this year and didn't just fill in the bubbles on the answer sheet.

Some problems that we had come up were that even though I had 3 or 4 sets of eyes look at the courses, some errors were still found. These were spelling, grammatical and the occasional wrong answer to a multiple choice question. When these errors were corrected and uploaded as new versions into the LMS, learners that had registered prior to the new upload seemed to have error messages occur.

Staff that needed to take a course more than once to make grade often didn't have a certificate of completion issued to them.

Some courses didn't track completion. Some frozen and after multiple attempts learners got too frustrated to continue.

Some courses wouldn't relaunch and resume where a learner left off.

After some time with the system now live and working more with the vendor most of these issues have now been resolved and any further issues seem to be more user error than anything. I was really hoping the launch would be more seamless and less painful for my users, but that was a bit of a dream looking back now. I should have known how it might roll out considering the implementation struggles I had.

I'm happy to see that people are using, most are keen too, and that their hasn't been a lot of negative feedback. I'm most excited when I have a late-career nurse call me, frustrated that they can't figure it out, and after a few minutes on the phone with them walking step-by-step through registration and course launch that they exclaim "wow, I really can do this."

Finally some nice feedback

After months and months of hard work slaving over the implementation of our LMS system. Then many long painstaking hours and overtime hours to get our mandatory core curriculum courses created. The system and courses have been launched to the entire organization.

True to form they hate change. Why can't we do this on paper? (Because you cheat off of each other) (Because no one reads it) We don't have enough computers. (One computer, everyone take turns over the course of 3 months, that's 720 times the courses can be done in one dept over the course of 3 months and the largest dept here has about 150 people).

Okay now I'm whining. I guess I was very naive in thinking that everyone would be as excited learning my this method as I am. So to have so many negative comments come my way since the launch of the mandatory courses has really gotten me down on my work environment. (The 34C weather hasn't helped either).

However, today for the first time I got feedback from a frontline worker. Not someone I know. Not someone I owe a favour to or wants a favour from me. Just another person here doing what she needs to do wrote me this:

"My name is XXX and I work in PACU. Just working my way thought the online
Core Curriculum package and wanted to let you know that I am so impressed.
It is extremely easy to use and the visuals make for a way better learning
experience than the old booklet version, especially when you are a visual
learner like myself. Everyone here in PACU is working away on their
package. Thanks again for doing such a great job."

Wow! How cool is that? How nice is it to hear positive feedback from a complete stranger. It completely made my whole day, maybe my whole month. I'm recharged and ready to make more courses and make them even better.

Take a moment send some positive feedback to someone you work with; the difference it can make is invaluable.

A pretty little fountain found while walking Toronto

Sent from BlackBerry.

How far do you take political correctness in your clipart?

I had feedback today on a course, that I thought was quite well done, that made me take a step back and get my back up a little as well. During a recent time crunch and with limited resources I put together a course for Accessibility and Customer Service Standards. I found a set of clipart that I thought looked business like enough without being too formal. I work in a health care setting and it is difficult to find (free-cheap) clipart that isn't just doctors and nurses.

Regardless of that, I took this set of clipart and tried to include as many of the images of people facing forward as I could (they were "speaking" to the learners), as many different ethnice backgrounds as I could. I looked for different levels of mobility, and I also included what I thought were different roles. Some of the more interactive pieces included real pictures of people in other roles and situations as well.

The comment that was made was that the only image the person saw of a man in my "slide deck" (not the interaction pieces) was of a man that was a doctor. Some staff may be offended by this because of the stereotype that not all doctors are men. I tried to explain there were other images of men within the course. I also tried to explain that this course was one of six in a set and some of the others within the set did have pictures of women that were physicians.

I wonder where does one draw the line. One can't possibly show every "type" of person in every single course and in fact for this particular courses I had great difficulty in finding pictures of people that have various disabilities that were not just from Special Olympic events.

Any thoughts on how you handle situations like this or try to remain as politically correct as possible would be interesting to hear.

Reusability - Too much of a good thing?

I'm curious about something. I'm unfortunately in a time crunch and have to "whip" several courses out faster then I would like (2-3 days). For one particular course there are a series of 7-8 segments of information that are "types of tools to use" & "tips for interacting". I used a circle diagram interaction (below) to present this material.



A good point is that I'm able to create the course screens quickly. The point I wonder about is this (relatively) okay for the learner. I thought perhaps seeing the same screen each time they would know what to expect to be shown, but does that also make them more likely to skip passed it?

Thoughts are welcome and any I get from other avenues of questioning I'll add here as well.

Swapping Bullet Pts for a HotSpot Series of Questions (#Articulate)

I'm going nuts lately trying to take 6 topics of core training that we have to give to staff and turn it all into elearing in a matter of a month. Currently the material is all in Word format and has been presented, tested, and marked that way for 6 years. I'm so grateful that it's going online, but if the staff think it's nuts to complete they should trying seeing what it is like to create the content.

After looking at the (what seems like) billionth page of bullet points I'm losing my edge as to another creative way to integrate the material into the course. For one particular section, instead of having them look through points or simply click through slides, I created this Articulate Quiz that has a series of fill in the blank questions. Instead of having them drag or type the word to complete these sentence I created a series of hotspot questions.

It was a simple way to use very simple graphics and swap them out one after another for each question. For those questions that I couldn't find the "right" graphic for in that particular clipart series I went with just a simple word instead. I'm happy to share the quiz/interaction here and the clipart I used was from Microsoft Clipart - Style 1541. I'd also be very appreciative of any/all feedback or comments. Sometimes one worries that they may have simplified the task too much for the audience of learners.

Navigating an Online Course ( #Articulate Engage Interaction)

Recently while looking at some examples of various elearning courses I decided that my "help" section of my own course was incredibly too long and perhaps annoying for learners. One example I saw had a quick one screen shot that people could click around.

I decided I needed something similar to this, but bearing in mind that I have learners that may have never taken an online course at all.

I created, using Articulate Engage, an interaction that is a static screen shot of a typical course here at work and the various components that the learner may come across while taking the course.

I think it's still a little over complicated (way too many things to explore). But I do believe it is a better attempt at showing the learner how to navigate through the course than my first try (1st Version - Navigating an Online Course).




Feel free to use the same interaction if you wish by getting it here: Navigating an Online Course (simple interaction)